Rampage Rally 3D Community Challenge

After years of following Clint's Challenges, I finally felt brave enough to jump in and take part in one myself. It's definitely a big step, especially when you consider all the other challenges where there are loads of really talented artists. I've realised that if I want to make progress, I've got to push myself to keep up with all the artists I look up to. I'm not there right now, but I'll get started and see where I am and where I can improve the most. This helps me to improve my 3D skills even more. You can also find out about the progress in this video. After that, I'll take a few notes on the things I want to improve.

Here you can see my final entry:

Process

It all starts with an idea in my head. A theme park with a pirate-themed water ride where you have to fight the Kraken to get the treasure chest. So, I've already started working on the layout, as well as the basic composition and objects. I used some basic models and a few free ones from the web to build up the scene and create the first test render. This helped me to get an idea of how the full animation could look like. After that, I just kept adding more and more details. More detailed pirate ship, the kraken, a water ride with people, animations and some FX.

Feedback:

I took some time to think about what I've created, what I like about it, and where I want to improve. I broke it down into a few main points, and at the end, I added a quick summary of what I try to focus on, because you can't work on everything at once.

Composition and Light:

The overall composition and lighting could definitely be better. Some parts of the scene are too dark because of the direction the sun is shining. This makes it tricky to see the finer details. I need to be more aware of where I'm putting light and shadows to make sure I'm drawing the viewer's eyes in the right direction.

Composition is a big part of it, too. It can help to direct the viewer. In this case, there's a lot happening all at once, and it's hard to keep track of what's really important. You'll need to watch the animation a few times to get all the story points. This shouldn't be the case, it should be obvious after watching it once.

Next time, I need to take more time to figure out what the most important story parts are, and direct the light and composition so you can see the most important parts.

Animation:

One of the most important rules of animation is anticipation, and this is something that's definitely missing here. You never know what's going on. So, if something's happening, you need a short animation to set the scene for the big one. And then, after something happens, you need to give it some kind of feedback to emphasize the action. For example, you can see the smoke from the cannon shots, but you don't see how they're fired or what happens after they're fired. There's no response from the tentacle either. The next thing I need to think about is how things would work in real life. The tentacles should move more like real animatronics, so it feels more realistic, like a rollercoaster ride.

FX:

That area was new to me, so there's clearly a lot to improve. I didn't have a clue about creating a good cannon shot smoke effect on my own, so I used some VDB effects I found online. The same goes for the water particles. I just used whatever I had to hand, but I'll take a closer look at how these effects work and how I can create them myself to have more freedom in my work.

Post processing:

This is also new to me. There are loads of ways to render using separate passes and layers, which is great because it gives me more options in post-production. It also means I can tweak things later on without having to re-render the whole thing. I am a bit of a beginner though, so I had to learn as I went along. It also taught me a bit about using post-processing and color grading tools, like DaVinci Resolve. I need to get better at recognizing what looks good.

Sky:

Sky looks a bit flat. If the sky was a bit more vibrant, with stronger contrast to the clouds, it would make the scene look much more high-quality, friendly and inviting, and fit the story much better.

Summary:

I think there are two main areas where I can improve the most, or where I can see the most value for improvement.
Composition and lighting: are key to making or breaking a scene. They help guide the viewer's eyes and make the story easier to understand.

Animation: are what make a scene feel alive, and if something looks off, it doesn't look good. So, learning how to make a good rig and how to animate can really help me make better content.